This invention relates to video systems, and more particularly, to filtering out certain events from videos in real time.
Television viewing is a common leisure time activity. Families gather nightly to watch their favorite programs. Pay-per-view movies and videocassette rentals are also popular sources of videos for family viewing.
A concern of many parents is that their children are exposed to too much sexually related and violent material. Although many television programs and movies are rated by industry associations, such ratings are of limited usefulness. Many potentially objectionable events occur in a given program or movie and the objectionable nature of the events varies from event to event. Nevertheless, at most a single rating is provided for each program or movie. As a result, some programs and movies may be given less mature ratings than they deserve, because the sexual or violent content of a relatively small number of events may be overlooked by a ratings association. Other programs and movies may be given more mature ratings than they deserve.
This situation presents parents with a dilemma. If a parent limits a child""s viewing to only those works with age-appropriate ratings, the child may feel that the parent is being overly restrictive. If the parent allows the child to view works with more mature ratings, the child will probably be exposed to at least some content that the parent feels is inappropriate for their child.
Adults without children who are disturbed by the amount of sexually related and violent material that they are exposed to are faced with a similar problem. They can either forego viewing certain programs and movies based on subjective and potentially inaccurate ratings information or can be forced to tolerate objectionable events in the programs and movies that they view.
One proposal that addresses concerns about sex and violence on television is to use blocking circuitry (sometimes referred to as the V-chip) to selectively block televised programs based on ratings information. Televisions with such blocking circuitry could be configured to only display television programs with certain ratings. However, this type of system would still be subject to the problems associated with ratings systems that apply a single rating to each television program or movie. Blocking all television programs with mature ratings may be overly restrictive. programs with mature ratings to be displayed will expose viewers to potentially objectionable material.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a way in which to selectively filter out potentially objectionable events from television programs and videos.
This and other objects of the invention are accomplished in accordance with the principles of the present invention by providing a filtering system in which certain potentially objectionable events in a video may be filtered out prior to displaying the video on the user""s home video equipment. Such potentially objection events (called substitution events) may be scenes in a television program or movie with profane or vulgar language or of a sexual or violent nature. The filtering system is preferably implemented with user equipment such as a set-top box, a stand-alone setup, a personal computer television (PC/TV), circuitry in a video-cassette recorder or television, etc. Substitution events may therefore be filtered out locally, under the direction of the user.
The user can select which types of potentially objectionable events are to be filtered out by interactively selecting from among predefined ratings settings in real time. If desired, the user can customize an existing ratings setting or create a list of objectionable events. Customized ratings settings and user-created lists of objectionable events are preferably stored as user-defined ratings settings, which are preferably among the predefined ratings settings that the user can interactively select.
Videos suitable for filtering are provided with substitution event information that identifies potentially objectionable events in the video. For example, substitution event codes may be embedded in a video (e.g., in the vertical blanking interval portion of a video signal or in a side band) to identify each portion of the video that contains profane, vulgar, sexually related, violent, or otherwise objectionable content. During operation, the system extracts the embedded substitution event codes and compares the extracted codes to a predefined list of prohibited substitution event codes contained in a substitution event table. If a given substitution event code is contained in the substitution event table, the substitution event corresponding to that code is filtered out by the system.
Filtering may be accomplished by blocking an audio or video signal for the duration of the undesired substitution event or may involve disrupting the event (e.g., by distorting, attenuating, overlaying, garbling or otherwise disrupting the audio and video signals for the event). Filtering may also be accomplished by substituting audio or video material for the substitution event. The type of substitution that is to be performed for a given substitution event can be defined as a function of substitution attributes contained in the substitution event table and locally selectable configuration parameters. When the system extracts a substitution event code from the unfiltered video and that substitution event code corresponds to a substitution event code in the substitution event table, the corresponding substitution attribute entry in the table can be used to define what type of substitution is made.
Audio substitutions may be stored in a library of audio clips. Audio substitutions may also be made by synthesizing audio signals in real time. Video image substitutions may be stored in a video library of video stills or video clips. The actors who performed an original work may prerecord material to be used during a substitution. For example, an actor may record an alternate version of a potentially objectionable passage. The alternate version of the passage can be stored in a library for use during substitutions.
Further features of the invention, its nature and various advantages will be more apparent from the accompanying drawings and the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments.